The Russian economy has faced a number of large-scale geopolitical and socio-economic challenges in recent years. At the same time, the territories with single-industry specialization were the most negatively affected, since their town-forming enterprises are highly dependent on external environmental factors. The list of single-industry towns in Russia was formed ten years ago; during this time there have been many global changes, but the authorities are still guided by this document when developing measures of state support. The work had two objectives: first, to assess the degree of their current monoprofile on the basis of analyzing the activities of the main economic entities in single-industry towns; and second, to identify how the new geopolitical and socio-economic challenges have affected the activities of town-forming enterprises. The research object was 20 small and medium-sized towns of the European North of Russia, categorized as single-industry towns. We identified three groups of towns: 1) single-industry towns with one or several large enterprises in one industry sector (i.e., towns that have retained their monoprofile); 2) single-industry towns that currently have several large or medium-sized enterprises in different economic sectors; 3) former single-industry towns with one or several town-forming enterprises that are currently liquidated. Based on the analysis of the financial performance of enterprises operating in small and medium-sized towns, we found that sanctions and the disruption of production chains with Western countries led to a marked decline in the profits of most of these organizations. The enterprises of the timber industry complex were particularly hard hit, as their activities were more export-oriented. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the development and approbation our own methodological approach to the implementation of the typology of towns classified as single-industry municipalities, based on the analysis of enterprises functioning in them
Keywords
monotown, monoprofile municipality, town-forming enterprise, small and medium-sized cities, European North of Russia